Across Iceland

by W. Bisiker

We had four tents, two large ones and two smaller; but on this occasion we only made use of one of them, for four of our number slept at the farm-house. For the rest of the journey across Iceland, however, all four were in use. The two large ones were square "Bell" tents: one was used for meals, and in it the conductor and his four guides slept at night; in the other, Hill, Thomas, and I camped. Miss Hastie used one of the smaller tents; while the "nautical adviser" and the "handy man" occupied the other.

We did not make a start the next day till half-past one; it was several hours after that agreed upon, but we very soon learned that unpunctuality, delays in starting, and consequent waste of time would mark the journey; this was chiefly due to the rotten state of the gear, for several hours were spent every morning in patching up and tinkering at the packs, boxes, and saddles that had come to grief during the previous day—each day had its record of breakages and damage, and each morning its hours devoted to making repairs. All this was very annoying, and it made another guide almost a necessity to relieve one of the English-speaking guides, so that he might go on with us while the others were occupied with the repairs. This would have caused things to work better, but unfortunately no other guide was available. We were already on the edge of the fringe of population inhabiting the regions near the seacoast, and we were fast approaching the uninhabited interior; there were no spare hands on the farms that we passed, so we were obliged to go on short-handed—short-handed only because of the continual breakages. The guides that we had could not have been improved upon: they were all first-class men, each was up to his work, and worked with a will; they were all Icelanders possessing small farms of their own, and two of them, Sigurthur and Hannes, spoke excellent English; Thorlakur was a beginner at it, but we generally managed to understand one another; the fourth man, Josef, was the only one who had no knowledge of our language. We were on excellent terms with all the guides, so things worked smoothly between us.

MORAINE ACCUMULATIONS AND CLOUD-EFFECTS AT THVERÁ.

On leaving Thverá our way, as we ascended some three or four hundred feet to the head of the valley, lay at first over a vast accumulation of moraine matter, piled high up on all sides. Our camping ground had been at the foot of this accumulation, and opposite to it on the other side of the valley there were also great heaps of similar stuff, while on the highest part of the range there was a very fine pinnacle rock, rising several hundred feet higher, and standing out sharp against the clear sky.

I had a bad day of it, being quite out of luck. The conductor accidentally backed his pony upon me, and my right foot was crushed and bruised beneath one of its hoofs; but worse was to come. About an hour after we had started, and when we were getting well up into the moraine, I heard a shout. "Helvit! Helvit!" cried one of the guides. On looking ahead I saw a pony running amuck through the rough broken lava and great boulders; he had got rid of most of his load, but something green was trailing at his heels. In horror I watched the pony's wild career, for the "something green" I recognised as the cover of my plane-table—one of the instruments that I had brought for the purpose of mapping a portion of the interior. This plane-table had been strapped on the top of some packs containing bedding, in order that it might ride on something soft and in safety. I comprehended what had happened. As usual something had given way, the packs and my plane-table had got loose about the pony's heels, and all had been kicked off except the plane-table, which had been made fast by one of its straps to a ring in the pack-saddle, and as the strap was sound it had held on. Well, there was no mistaking its Willesden canvas cover—there it was, trailing along at the pony's heels, being kicked and banged against boulders great and small, just as they came in the way. Bumpity-thump it went along the ground, and with a crash it struck the boulders! The table was ruined, for it trailed a mere crumpled mass without definite shape. There was an end to prospects of mapping. I watched the pony's career for a moment, more in sorrow than in anger, then I urged my own pony into a canter, and came up with the runaway just as one of the guides caught him. The wreck of the plane-table was soon detached from the pack-saddle; a hasty inspection proved that my fears were confirmed: the table itself was represented by a couple of strips, the rest of it was missing; the tripod stand and the alidade ruler were also missing. The guides scoured the neighbourhood of the pony's course, and after a while one of them turned up with one or two strips of wood, pieces of the plane-table, and placed them beside the others. I looked on listlessly until another guide brought in a long green case. This did not seem to be much damaged, so I hastily examined the contents (the tripod stand and the ruler), and found to my joy that they were practically uninjured; a few bruises to the legs did not matter much, for they did not affect the stability of the stand—both alidade and stand could be used! I then turned to the wreck of the table itself and examined the pieces; they were not complete, two or three were missing, but I noticed that although all the screws had been wrenched out, and the apparatus for fixing the board to the stand had also been wrenched off, yet the breaks and splinters were all along the grain of the wood. The guides went over the ground again, and brought back one or two additional strips. I then roughly put the pieces together, and found that except for a few splinters I had got them all, and that none was broken across the grain; the two cross-bars for the back, the last pieces found, were also unbroken. It looked as if it might be roughly mended, if only the necessary tools were available.

THE WRECKED PLANE-TABLE.

The views in the valley of the Oxnadalsá were fine, and the river scenery where the water had carved deep down through the lava and tuff was very bold, the red and blue tints of a quantity of scoria on the steep banks adding to the effect.

In the evening we crossed the water-parting, or divide, between the Oxnadalsá and the Northrá rivers, and at night camped beside a farm known as Fremrikot near the head of the valley of the Northrá river (Northradal). It was a picturesque spot, and the Northrá is typical of the smaller rivers of the country, the valley filled with alluvium and the river meandering through it, though when in flood not much of the alluvium can be seen.